High Schools 2004

Summary Data from November 2003 College Entrance Test

Although the IEI students face a year or more of developmental level English courses as well as typically math courses, the mission of the College of Micronesia-FSM to reach out and assist in the development of the nation requires the college to accept students who are not ready for college level work. Thus the number passing is not a measure of the number of college-ready students being produced by the high school. The high schools, however, unfortunately choose to use the number who pass as a measure of their own success in their performance based budgets. As a result these numbers are important to the high schools. The complication is that the number accepted into IEI and regular programs this year was purely a function of the college setting particular enrollment targets and is not a reflection of any particular underlying cut-off point based on competency. Other data on competency follows this first table.

The essay is thought by many at the College of Micronesia-FSM to be one of the strongest indicators of a student's potential to succeed at the college. The essay combines demonstrating a mastery of English with high level critical thinking, reflection, analysis, and synthesis skills. The essay is marked on a six point scale. Essays scored with a one are typically incomprehensible or off-topic. Essays of a four or higher are felt by many to represent a student who is ready for the College of Micronesia-FSM, although a student with a four is still likely to place into development writing. The high schools are in rank order according to a weighted average. High schools with an average of less than two are not producing students who have any ability to write in English, and many may have been unable to read the essay question.

The following table looks at the number and percentage of students with an average above 500 on the structure and reading section of the present entrance examination. Students above a score of 500 are functioning at a level in English that indicates a readiness to do college level work.

The math section of the entrance test places a student directly into either MS 090 Developmental Mathematics, MS 095 PreAlgebra, MS 098 Transition to Algebra, or college level courses. MS 090 is essentially junior high school level mathematics, MS 095 is roughly equivalent to high school algebra I and MS 098 is roughly equivalent to high school algebra II. The weighted average is a crude representation of the average grade level of the students based on the above equivalencies. A weight of 8 was assigned to MS 090, 10 to MS 095, 12 to MS 098, and 14 to college level placement. The choice of 14 reflects a mathematical usefulness in keeping the weights equidistant from each other. Any school with a weighted average above 10 can be pleased with their results and is getting the job done in mathematics at their school. The sad news is that 1349 students are being placed in the equivalent of eighth grade mathematics - a number that hides the underlying innumeracy of these students. Although these students are being placed into MS 090, many have scores that are not statistically significantly separated from random. Chuuk High School and Weno High School have averages that are not statistically separated from random guessing. A five year old who could follow the direction to color in only one bubble per line could do as well. To say that math learning is occurring there is simply not true. There is some evidence that Southern Noumeneas High School might have made some minimal progress as they appear to be rising slightly above random.

The point system proposal that the admissions board is yet to consider suggests weighting the GPS by the tier of the high school where there would be three tiers. As an example of a possible implementation of that process, the rank of each school on the three areas above are averaged to produce an average rank. Ties are broken by using the standard deviation which places a value on consistency when there is a tie in the rank order. Finally a tier number is generated. Tier one schools would have their GPA multiplied by 1.5. Tier two schools would have their GPA multiplied by 1.0. Tier three schools would have their GPA multiplied by 0.5. Note that the point system proposal would allow using either a cut-off point for admissions or a rank order approach.

My apologies for not doing a more thorough analysis. This data should provide a starting place for others to do their own analyses. Please contact Dana Lee Ling with any questions!